Tag Archives: networth

November was a reasonably successful month for networth growth. According to NetworthIQ, my networth is now $541,989. This is a 2.98% (or $15.6k) monthly increase from the end of October.

End of Month Spend Report

Income: $7826
Spend: $3907Remainder: $3919

Spend Breakdown

Rent: $1350

Auto: $284

Bills: $170

Entertainment: $48

Food & Dining: $707

Health: $114

Infertility: $563

Shopping: $1821*

Travel: $190

Other: $10

Went a little (ok a lot) crazy with shopping this month… mostly due to the Sephora Rouge sale. Don’t judge. I’m planning to return a chunk of items I bought that I don’t need, so that will hit December’s spend. Had I not gone psycho on shopping, this month would have actually not been that bad.

Despite spending way too much at Sephora (*this includes all of my hair products for the year, which I acquire for 20% off. And, other things I don’t need.)

And all this spend was BEFORE I knew I was pregnant… so I’m definitely going to focus on cutting down the shopping habit going forward. The good thing about living in a 1 bedroom apartment is that it’s hard to go too crazy buying things for the soon-to-be newborn. And, I now have a very real “why to save” goal ahead of me… coming in 8 months! OH MY GOD. My objective is to save as much as possible before baby comes. That, and kick ass at my job so my boss allows me to work remotely and keep earning income when I return from a very brief maternity leave. (AH.)

The baby (singular or plural) may – or may not – happen. But, I’m turning 34 NEXT FUCKING WEEK and I feel like I need to have some new goals in my life. Some new goals that involve not living like a just-graduated-from-college person for the rest of my life.

I was absolutely fine living my 20s in shared living situations to save money, and my early 30s were completely acceptable sharing a 1 bedroom apartment with my husband. But – as I’ve taken home $160k+ per year, minus taxes, for the last 3 years – I wonder what on earth am I doing this for if I can’t have some semblance of the adult life I want.

All the east coast dreams of the grande house with the huge backyard are gone. I’ve downsized my objectives – but I still have them. I’d like to own a house on not-the-crappiest street. I’d like to be able to take time off in the future (in health or in sickness) and not worrying about running out of money. I’ve made progress, but I still have a long way to go.

This all assumes I can perform well in my current job for the next four years, age 34-38, and not take significant time off, all while (hopefully) having two children.

My goal has always been to have $500k in the bank before having children. I have obtained that goal. My next goal is to have $1M in the bank before 40. Ideally well before 40. I’d like $1M in the back as my emergency fund and retirement fund and the fund which I do not touch. Over this same time, my husband will be doing what he does and not investing his money because he’s very risk averse. This is fine, because he will be saving up for the down payment on our (not in this part of the country) house.

Assuming I have one child in 2018/19 (age 34-35); and one in 2020/21 (36-37); by the time I have achieved this plan, I have one child who is ~3 and one who is ~1. This will enable us to, before we have to think about putting the kids into school, move to a part of the country where housing is more affordable. My husband can continue his career as a teacher in a region it is more cost effective, and I can perhaps pursue an entirely new career – or take time to spend at home with the kids.

I realize $1M is NOT “early retirement.” This is step two in my… however many step, not very well thought out plan…

I’m not sure if any of that makes sense. So far steps 1 was achieved (woohoo) and step 2 seems like it might be achievable, if I can hold on to this job for the full four years. I am going to hold on to it with all my might. The having kids things definitely may throw a wrench in this plan regardless, but I’m hopeful I can take minimal time off for my kids when they’re really young (and/or work remote and still do my job, which might be possible)… then, after four years, we leave. We have to leave. We will never be able to afford a house here. I don’t know why that’s so important to me – I realize homeownership is a horrible financial decision – but it is. I can’t shake it. I want to design my own bathroom and kitchen… I’d like a backyard I can sit in and enjoy the sun without feeling the prying eyes of others all over me. I want a place for my children to grow up and a home to know.

So, that’s the plan. It suddenly seems all so very short term. I feel quite old. 34 is no joke. 34 is just a few years away from 40. And 40 is no longer fake adulthood. It’s serious, full-on, you’re an adult – and you’re only going to get MORE adult until you’re PAST that… and, I’m trying not to freak out about that, because I know life is so very short, and I need to just enjoy the moments and try to achieve some semblance of both freedom and control before I’m too old to enjoy it.

Despite not having a job for four solid months this year (and spending $20k on travel during that time), with the stock market’s latest performance my net worth is still up significantly. I realize what goes up must come down, but for now I’m enjoying seeing a higher net worth than I expected given how the job situation has gone down this year, and my not-so-frugal global travels.

It’s a little upsetting that if I hadn’t taken the trips and if I was able to obtain a job sooner, my net worth would be much higher — but my goal was always to close 2017 with $500k in net worth, and I’m really happy that I likely will accomplish that, barring any crazy stock market crash.

I do owe my husband a lot of money (we keep our accounts separate) but he’s a good lender with really great rates (no interest, just hugs.) 🙂

October spending definitely was high, given all the traveling. But I’m hoping for Nov and December expenses will be significantly reduced. I am taking one weekend trip but otherwise it should be a relatively cheap month. Here’s how October played out:

*note – believe it or not, this is my portion of monthly spend only. My husband has a separate budget, including his portion of the rent.

Wealth does not = happiness, but at some point one obtains enough money that unless it’s frivolously spent, there are many doors open for the remainder of her life. Perhaps she loves her current career and decides too stay in it today and long past retirement. Or, she is set free of the confines of taking jobs that pay well and instead tries sometimes entirely new, without concern that the investment in education may not “pay off.” Or, she decides to create art or travel the world or just sit and study the sunset over the same ocean every day while doing half-assed yoga on a beach.

In reality, my goal in life is to generate enough wealth to feel this sense of freedom. Yes, that likely means I would be in the 1%, and it is not necessary to be happy at all. Most people will never achieve anywhere close to this. I don’t know what the number is, exactly, but it’s certainly more than I’ll ever be able to obtain, especially given my proclivity for purchasing too many shoes. Yet, it’s what keeps me going – that hope that one day I’ll not only be able to afford a house, but also to decorate it, and to invite friends over for reasonably-lavish dinner parties featuring fine wines and whiskies that my husband and I have prepared in our gourmet kitchen.

When I look at my net worth, now a touch over $500k, I feel both thrilled and disheartened. I realize that most people in the US retire with a networth much lower than that – that most people in the world would be ecstatic to have this amount in savings and stocks. But, then I also spend too much time exploring housing options on Zillow.com and see that 2 bedroom, 1 bath houses in the area are now selling for $1.3M or more, and my dream of purchasing a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home with a private backyard goes poof in the night. I look around at my decent 1 bedroom apartment with its sterile white walls — my bicycle parked so elegantly in the living room filled with a Craiglisted, 10-year-old couch, broken IKEA coffee table, and two Target bookshelves that are about to crumble, and I know even at this stage of my mid-30s life I can do better.

I wish I was at a point where spending $100k on IVF wouldn’t put a dent in my savings, or that I felt I could have children and provide for them a life that is comparable to my own middle class upbringing in the suburbs of an east coast city, where housing is much more affordable. I keep wondering what that number is… even as I obtain jobs which provide greater potential for income growth, there is a giant gap between my life today and this concept of wealth I have in my head, that I haven’t fully quantified yet.

Wealth.

What is it?

$2M per adult in retirement (so, $4M for a married couple)

Ownership of 4br, 3ba home outright (additional $2M – or $1.5M for 3br)

50 years of $50k / year for house fixing as needed, taxes, other fees ($2.5M)

50 years of $100k / year for eating/travel/shopping ($5M)

College tuition for 2-3 kids ($500k)

This is, of course, well exaggerating what is needed for financial freedom, but to put a number on the amount I’d want in the bank account to feel financially free (for family), that would be….

$14,000,000

Now, even if I get more realistic here and half that…

$1.5M per adult in retirement ($3M)

$1.5M house (can’t reduce this / basic house cost here)

50 years of $20k / year for house fixes (~$1M)

$50k / year of food and fun ($2.5M)

College Tuition (assuming some scholarships) – $200k

$7,000,000 is the minimum amount of wealth for financial freedom if we continue to live in this area.

Is $7M obtainable?

Maybe. But only via compound interest, and with that one wouldn’t know if she met her goals until she was in her 80s… plenty time past when purchasing a home would make sense. So she must have blind faith in the stock market OR figure out a way to expedite the growth of her portfolio. In short, how fast can I get to $7M from $500k?

My goal at this point is to have $1M by the time I turn 40. That will only be obtainable if I maintain my current job for the next four years, perform extremely well (no pressure), and we keep our cost of living low for this time.

Contributing $50k per year for the next 6 years, if my portfolio grows at an average of 5% per year, I will have a net worth of $1M by 40. This requires maintaining my job and living in a 1 bedroom apartment for the next six years, living rather frugally, all during the time in my life when – if I’m going to have kids – I will be having children (hopefully, two, within the next six years.)

If I don’t end up having children, the numbers change significantly – but I definitely want kids and I definitely want to pay for infertility treatments as needed to have them. Which, ultimately means that I won’t likely get to $1M by 40. But I’ll be close, as long as I keep this job for 6 years (or keep this job for 4 and obtain a similar one with equal or greater salary for the remaining 2).

At that point, if I have $1M by 40, I will have 20-ish more years of prime earning, if I work full time for those 20 years. BUT I am convinced that I want to go back to school at 40 to change careers to a lower-paid job such as counseling, not to maintain my position in a role that I’m fighting day and night to pretend to be good at. So, the $1M mark is my first taste of freedom…

This is truly a recognizable moment of freedom because if I invest $1M for 20 years at 5% rate of return, I will have $2.6M by 60, and $3.38M by 65. My husband doesn’t need as much as I do in retirement, so The $3.38M by 65 is basically my half of the $7M goal. What I would be focused on then, at 40, after the $1M is hit, is obtaining a position that I can maintain for 25 years that I enjoy which enables paying annual costs, so we don’t touch the $1M in the bank.

I’d like to own a 3br, 2ba home by the time my first child is 4. At this point, I should know if I’m having 2 children or just one (or none at all.) So – some of my net worth will have to be put into the down payment of a house. I go back and forth on buying a house but I think at this point I’m diversified enough in stocks that I can afford to own real estate, even if its growth does not keep up with the stock market (and I have the liquidity in stocks to pay for mortgage should we have any bad years in the job market.) So, I’d need $300,000 for a downpayment on a $1.5M starter home, in ~5 years.

But – I need to invest for the next 5 years to hit the $1M goal… and then in 5 years, at age 39, I’d have to take $300M out of my stocks (well $366M with 20% tax) for the downpayment. My husband may be able to contribute to this a bit – probably $100k of it in 5 years, but for simplicity (and explaining to husband) we both need to provide $150k in 5 years for our down payment. That’s a more reasonable $180k stock sale in 5 years, leaving $748k to grow in stocks…

Annually, for the $1.5M house, costs would be…

$90k mortgage (approx)

$20k taxes (approx)

$1k insurance

$15k maintenance

= $126k / year ($63k per person per year for 30 years …
$5.25k / month or $10.5k per month for 30 years)

Which means, for our $1.5M house, all in 30 years later, it will cost $4.08M. (Is my math right?)

Ok, so, if the numbers above are right, we cannot afford a $1.5M house in 5 years. Which, basically means we cannot afford a house, unless we can put down a much larger down payment.

In 5 years, unless there’s a housing bubble burst, I doubt there will be any real estate around here that’s less than $1.5M. My take home income is $7,000 per month and my husband’s will be about $3,000…. so, even if I keep my job and he keeps his, we can’t pay $10.5k/month when we’re only taking home $10k per month.

Really, the only potential route to wealth for us is to rent. So, maybe I’ll never own a house. Even if that’s one of our financial goals. But, it’s just so much cheaper to rent an apartment than to own a house.

Maybe, one day when we can afford to put down a 50% down payment buying a house will be worth it. But by then, a basic home will cost $2M… so… I don’t think we’ll ever have enough money to own a home.

This is why I feel so hopeless… even if we have so much more than so many people right now… I just don’t know how to have the life I want, or anything close to it. I don’t need a home today, but I want to feel like I’m making progress towards not living in a 1 bedroom apartment (and a condo won’t help much, if we were to buy one since it’s slightly more affordable, because we’d still have shared walls and annoying neighbors… might as well just rent!)

10 years ago, I wrote my first post on Her Every Cent Counts. Well, I missed the exact anniversary date, but it was on May 29, 2007 when I started writing, noting that my networth at the time was $27,000 and that my income was $35,000 a year.

Over the last 10 years, as I started to save money each year, investing in retirement and taxable accounts, I got this crazy idea that I wanted to save $500,000 before having my first child. Given I had less than $100k to my name when this idea popped into my head, it seemed to be an impossible quest.

I ran my networth numbers on June 1 and discovered that due to growth in my portfolio and other savings, I have achieved my goal of $500,000 in networth (before having kids.) It feels kind of surreal – on one hand, it feels like a huge accomplishment, to have saved $500k before my 34th birthday — on the other, as I confront the realities of unemployment and consider changing careers, I wonder if I should fight through life in a role that isn’t suited for me in order to move on to my next goal of $1M by 40 – or, do I find peace with living a simple life, find a job I can actually be good at, and not touch the $500k (outside of educational funds) so it can blossom into a substantial retirement account to enjoy later in life?

There is no one in my real life to be able to celebrate this moment with — so I’m celebrating it here with you, my anonymous and semi-anonymous readers. Thanks to you, I have kept up savings for the last 10 years – have turned down opportunities to live closer to work and in nicer housing, have generally been more frugal than my income would enable me to be, esp in the last few years, and have been heads down on achieving this arbitrary goal that nonetheless is incredibly rewarding to achieve. With 32 years left to retirement, not touching the $ and it growing an average of 5% YoY gets me to my retirement savings goal of >$2M. The trick, now, is not touching that money, and still managing to make enough to live a decent life.

Happy 10th Anniversary HECC, and to all of you who read my blog regularly or occasionally or are brand-new readers, thank you for inspiring me to be a good saver, and for making it possible to achieve this major life goal.

Incredibly, 2016 has come to a close. My networth goal for 2016 was somewhere between $400k and $500kfrom last year’s $352k finish. I didn’t get (anywhere near) $500k, but I still feel accomplished given my mental health and spending more than I wanted to on my wedding this year. I’ve concluded 2016 with $416,583 in networth, including:

$14k in cash

$188k in taxable investment accounts

$204k in retirement accounts

$9.9k in college 529 (for grad school or future kids)

My goals for 2017 are:

$15k in cash

$250k in taxable investment accounts

$225k in retirement accounts

$10k+in college 529

TOTAL: $500,000

It will be tough, but this goal should be do-able if I either stay in my current job or find another one that pays close to this one. Even if I reduce my current salary by $20k I should be able to still hit this goal. I must save $84,000 in the next 12 months, or $7000 per month. This is definitely do-able with my current job (I make about $10k after taxes per month), but if I reduce that to $9k per month I can manage to save enough. Any less than that it would be challenging with my current rent and other recurring fees.

I am worried about the costs of infertility treatments (that will definitely ruin my networth goal for the year) but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. Even though my mental health is poor right now I know I will feel a huge sense of relief when achieving $500k in networth. It has been a dream of mine since forever ago to achieve half a million in networth prior to giving birth. Well, as I’m not pregnant yet I have AT LEAST nine months before I need to get to $500k. At this rate I’ll have more than nine months to get there.

My 2016 goal was to hit between $400k and $450k in networth. While I’m not going to get anywhere near the top of that range, there is still a chance I can make it to $400k.

On January 1, 2016 my networth was $339.5k. As of November 15, 2016, my networth is $391.4k, a $51.9k increase. To hit my objective of $400k networth minimum, the stock market needs to hold out and I must save around $9k more between now and the end of the year. That should be doable but it will be close.

Next year is theoretically the big $500k year. With very poor job stability right now I’m guessing that goal is going to have to be adjusted down significantly – I won’t actually get to $500k before I have a baby (since I’ll probably have to spend $50k to even get pregnant!) In any case, despite the shakiness at work, I’m feeling good about getting closer to achieving my goals for the year.

I’m very seriously considering moving to a lower cost of living area to have a family and taking on a lower paid career – I just want to cross that $500k mark before I do. Having $500k in the bank means $1M-$2M in retirement as long as the markets don’t completely crash and go up at a reasonable rate, as long as I don’t touch the $500k basis. I will feel very successful once I get to $500k, and as I’m at $391 now it isn’t that far out. It’s definitely possible.

There are many benefits to being an “accredited investor,” primarily centered around being able to invest in securities not registered with financial authorities. In other words, the government blocks non-wealthy folks from making “high risk / high reward” investments. Is this fair? Shouldn’t I be allowed to invest my money in any investment if I earned that money?

While investments open only to accredited investors are high risk, there are many other investment types open to any income level which are extremely high risk. Even investing in one individual public stock – which anyone can do – is nearly the equivalent of putting all of one’s money on red in Vegas. Continue reading →

As my long-time readers know, my “impossible” goal of hitting $500,000 in individual net worth before I have my first child is somehow within sight. It’s still seemingly impossible, but I always aim high and see how far I can get. I’m not pregnant yet, so that gives me at least nine months to get there. Below, I’m going to detail my budget plan to take me from where I am today to where I want to be before my first child is born.

It’s been a while since I’ve written about finances on this blog, and since it’s somehow half way through the year it’s time to do a quick check in. So, the first half of this year has not been as profitable as it should have been given my high income, but the wedding just wiped out most of my gains. My stock has been performing ok so I haven’t lost money on paper, but I could be doing much better right now had I not gone crazy on my wedding. I don’t regret it, though, and it just inspires me to tighten my wallet for the rest of the year to hit my goals.

My goal WAS $500k before having kids and it still kind of is — I’m not pregnant yet and I’m at $373k in net worth right now… leaving $127k left to achieve my goal before I have my first child. Even if I got pregnant tomorrow, that leaves me nine months to accumulate $127k, which is $14k a month… not exactly doable (I figure being frugal with my current income I can save about $6k a month) but this is all on the hypothetical if I get pregnant tomorrow which likely won’t happen. More likely it will take me at least a year to get pregnant (and we aren’t going to really start trying until after our actual honeymoon next spring) so that buys me an extra 9 months at least… getting me to $7k a month savings/interest needed to hit my goal. While it will be tough the goal actually seems POSSIBLE to hit. It all depends on when I get pregnant and if I can keep my job – both serious up in the air variables – but if I’m not quite at $500k when I have a kid it won’t be the end of the world. It’s just a random goal keeping me on track to $2M+ in retirement.

(See first half of year being kind of bleh below:)

I’m counting wedding gifts towards my total which I guess I should split in half with my husband, but he/his family didn’t pay for much of the wedding, so I’m currently keeping them toward my net worth (it still doesn’t cover all of what I spent on the wedding.) I’ll have to write another post on married finances because that’s worth a post (at least) but for now I’m still tracking my net worth independently. I think I will until I get to $500k because what fun would it be to merge our finances and get there by cheating and adding his small savings into mine. I want to get to $500k so I can move on to my next goal of $750k and then the big $1M. I think $1M by 40 is achievable but I might not go for that… I might aim for $1M by 45 or 50 and slow my career down a bit and seek out a better career that brings more happiness and creative fulfillment. Once I get to $500k I don’t want to go under it by much, I feel that’s a good amount for financial freedom when I still want to work full time.

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About Me

The anti-minimalist: I'm the absolute worst with money. I have a shopping addiction. That's exactly why this blog exists. HECC is not a typical personal finance blog. I started it in 2007 to hold myself accountable for binge spending, a dropping networth, and lack of overall fiscal literacy. 10 years later, had achieved a networth of over $500k. Now my goal is to hit $1M by 40. Recently married and with my first kid on the way, things are about to get... interesting. I write about the intersection of mental health and money, spending & investing, and millennial personal finance.